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PHEW WALLOPS CODE
ALHAT could provide a clearer landing supports the work of the Press Council of Ireland and the Office of the Press Ombudsman, and our staff operate within the Code of Practice. As a result, service men and women have died. When helicopters fly and go to land, dust can interfere with the pilot’s view of the landing site. military and automobile manufacturers.” He explained, for example, that there is long-term applicability that can be applied to helicopters. Robertson said, “We’ve been contacted by U.S. “The folks engaged in science mission directorate and Mars missions are very interested in a number of these products…and are actually planning to incorporate those in future missions that they’re looking at right now,” Robertson said.ĪLHAT is not only bringing new technologies to NASA. And because of their efforts, many NASA missions benefit. Wallops folks flew the helicopter to KSC where KSC provided flight operations oversight and the test debris field. Langley did the integration and airworthiness of the instruments on the aircraft. Ames, Wallops, and KSC provided the pilots. JPL, JSC, and Langley provided the instruments for the test. To be more specific, the help Kempton is talking about is from the six NASA centers that joined together to make this happen: Ames Research Center, Wallops Flight Facility, JSC, JPL, Langley and KSC.Įach had an integral role, but it wasn’t a simple task.
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“We would never have gotten there without all the exceptional help received over the last several weeks,” Kempton said. “This allows us the ability to verify functionality of our flash lidar system for mapping out terrain in 3-D and detecting hazards and identifying safe sites.”īefore the team moves on to the next set of testing, they can’t help but take a moment and revel at their hard work. “We flew down to Kennedy to perform similar tests that will be done on Morpheus for risk reduction,” said ALHAT Deputy Project Manager, Edward Robertson. The next ALHAT flight tests will be on a vertical test bed called Morpheus which will demonstrate autonomous landing on an imitated lunar surface. “The data sets that have been generated are by far the most realistic data we have ever gotten from the ALHAT system.” “overall, the integrated system on the helicopter worked just as we had hoped” said systems engineer, Kevin Kempton.
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In other words, ALHAT will provide the pilots with on board automated guidance, navigation and control software, which gives them the ability to precisely and safely land. Helicopter tests allow researchers to test the functionality of ALHAT as an integrated system in a flight environment.
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To ensure its design capabilities, the ALHAT instrumentation was put on a NASA Huey helicopter followed by a completion of 12 flight tests – starting at Langley and finishing at Kennedy Space Center (KSC). The project is led by Johnson Space Center (JSC) and supported by Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Langley Research Center.
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